


scum of the luxurious

by stardustpilot



Category: Keeper of the Lost Cities Series - Shannon Messenger
Genre: Angst, Black Swan (Keeper of the Lost Cities) - Freeform, Blood and Injury, Boys Being Boys, Good guys vs. bad guys, Implied/Referenced Underage Drinking, M/M, Romance, The Neverseen (Keeper of the Lost Cities), competing agencies, hmm maybe a little bit of, prize fighter au
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-02-14
Updated: 2020-02-14
Packaged: 2021-02-28 02:22:03
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,194
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22706164
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stardustpilot/pseuds/stardustpilot
Summary: keefe sencen is on a mission to recruit one of the wasteland's most prized fighters--a mysterious boy with silver hair and eyes that don't quite match and a penchant for trouble. he's not the only one looking to get his hands on this boy: the neverseen want him too.keefe sencen hasn't ever "thrown fists" (--is that what they say at fight clubs?--) at anyone before, but he thinks, for some reason, this boy is someone worth fighting for.
Relationships: Keefe Sencen/Tam Song
Comments: 3
Kudos: 16





	scum of the luxurious

The door was not very welcoming. 

In fact, it seemed to scream “DANGER” and “GO AWAY” and “DO NOT ENTER UNLESS YOU WANT CERTAIN DEATH” to Keefe. He wanted nothing more than to run. 

There were heavy silver chains looped across the frame, as though to keep the insiders _in_ and the outsiders _out_ , and the wood was marred with locks of various shape and condition. There was rust and gold and all that lay between, a whole century of stories on that door. And of course, to make it even more daunting, there were indentations. 

Not markings or even runes, which would have been slightly reasonable, given its mysterious essence. 

No, they were not markings or runes. They were bullet holes. 

Bullet holes, which were left as the result of a fight (or ten) that escalated a bit too much to be able to be handled with fists. 

_“Keefe, do you copy?”_

Keefe jumped. He pressed a hand to his ear. “Yes, I copy,” he hissed fiercely, “and don’t do that again because I’m supposed to be subtle but instead I almost peed myself because of how much you scared me!” 

That got him a chuckle from the other end. _“Forkle just wanted me to remind you not to get distracted. You’re looking for him, and that’s it.”_ The small, tinny voice belonged to none other than the genius Dex Dizznee. _“No--”_

“No flirting, no touching, no trying to convince him to join our good corporation, and definitely no trying to take him home,” Keefe said automatically. He was still staring at the door. “My only current concern is getting that door open. It looks...rather difficult to reason with.” 

_“You just have to knock.”_

“Right,” Keefe said walking up to the door. “Chains and locks and bullet holes, but the only thing you need to do is _knock_ to get inside.” 

_“The security’s pretty bad,”_ Dex said. It sounded like he was smiling from the other end. _“But I mean, everyone inside should know more than enough about defending themselves should an external threat arrive.”_

“That’s reassuring,” Keefe grumbled, stepping closer to the door and forcing his shoulders to stop inching upwards like scared children towards their mother. “They sound like threats, and I am both entirely unarmed and unprepared to go down swinging.” 

Before Dex could reassure him (or make the situation even worse, as he usually did), Keefe took a deep breath and knocked on the door. 

...Nothing happened. 

And then someone gruff grabbed his arm and he was snatched into a room of darkness. 

\-- 

Except it wasn’t really darkness, at least when his eyes adjusted. 

It was a whole new world. 

He was trying to appreciate it, he really was, but the man who’d grabbed him with the strongest hands he’d ever felt wasn’t letting go, and he was in the middle of lecturing Keefe on...something. 

Keefe didn’t speak Vernacular well enough to share a more _pleasant_ conversation with the man, but he knew enough about the vulgarities of Vernacular from his time with a certain Sophie Foster to know that he’d interrupted something very important and was being called some not-so-nice names. Dumb-stupid-idiot being one of them. 

Dumb-stupid-idiot man released Keefe after a sharp finger-poke to the chest that had him coughing, and there he was, in one of the most renowned fight clubs in the Wastelands. 

Without weapons. 

Or any fighting experience. 

This was fine. (It really wasn’t.) 

It was very, very dark. 

\--

The clinking of glasses from the far right indicated that there was certainly more than just water being served to the fighters. Entertainment, it seemed, was not taken lightly by the Scums of the Wastelands. 

The ring in the center was empty, the lights dim. 

Whatever fight he had interrupted was over. 

There was a man spitting into a basin. Keefe didn’t realize it was blood until he looked up, caught his eye, and smiled a smile stained with red. 

“What do they do here?” Keefe mumbled to himself. He glanced around nervously, and his heart almost stopped when he caught sight of the boy the Black Swan had been searching for for 6 years.

He was gorgeous, that was for sure. Keefe knew that even twenty feet away and watching him across the ring in the dim light. His black hair and silver tips that stood in stark contrast to the darkness behind him. He was chewing his lip, wrapping his fingers with tape that looked like it had been torn through time and time again. 

The light painted him an angel, but Keefe knew that there was blood on the boy’s hands. 

He imagined that he’d reek of alcohol and the musty stench of smoke, that his smile would be crooked and wicked, and that, worst of all, he would see Keefe and sneer and refuse to talk to him. 

He knew how Scums reacted to Luxurians. 

But he really was pretty… 

Keefe’s train of thought stuttered to a halt when someone bumped into his shoulder and spilled most of their drink down the front of his shirt. 

Keefe scowled and turned with an insult already lining the tip of his tongue. “You nasty little--” 

He froze when he saw her. 

He knew this woman. 

And her presence was far from a comforting. 

“What do you want?” Keefe asked testily. He unconsciously took a few timid steps backward. 

Umber followed happily. “Despite being different organizations, our desires are very much the same, Keefe Sencen.” 

_“Damn, they’re looking for him too.”_ Dex’s voice rang panicked in Keefe’s ear, making the situation infinitely worse. Keefe fought to keep his expression even, but it was especially hard when Dex said, _“Walk away, Keefe. Don’t attract attention.”_

 _I’m not leaving him behind,_ Keefe thought, searching the crowd. 

The boy was gone. 

Umber watched him with her head cocked to the side. Her stare was as unnerving as her smile was wicked. “That boy doesn’t share loyalties with any gang,” she whispered. “You’ll never get a piece of him. He’s here, then he’s not, and he runs with so many different groups that the stories get jumbled up.” 

_“Keefe…”_

Keefe scoffed. “Yeah? And what makes you think he’s joining your alliance?” 

Umber shrugged, a her smug smile taunting. She looked past Keefe, to the bar where the glasses had provided a steady tune of clinking. “We have an agreement.” 

“I don’t suppose you’d like to tell me what that is…” Keefe murmured as he turned to follow Umber’s steely gaze. 

_“He has a sister.”_ Dex’s voice sounded fragile through his earpiece. 

It wasn’t hard to put two and two together, and it managed to make bile rise in Keefe’s throat. 

He wasn’t working with them voluntarily, or even for a cash prize. It was a threat against his sister. 

“You’re a bastard,” Keefe spat. 

Umber just gave him an amused chuckle and stalked away to find her next prey. 

\-- 

Keefe needed a drink. 

“I don’t suppose you have orange juice?” He asked, leaning over the counter to peer at the menu and failing spectacularly. It wasn’t that the font was small, as he’d suspected. It was all in Vernacular. Of course. 

“No,” the girl said, giggling. And then she said a string of words that sounded strangely like she was asking him a question, one that he couldn’t for the life of him understand. 

“I’ll just have...this…” Keefe said, pointing at a drink on the menu that looked enough like the passion fruit vodka he needed that he was willing to give it a try. 

“That’s fifty credits,” she said, watching him suspiciously with her silver eyes. 

She looked even more surprised when he handed over his card without flinching. 

She knew it then as well as he did: He was not from here. He did not belong here. 

Any scum would think that fifty credits were forty credits too much for a drink. But as a Luxurian and member of a rebel organization, Keefe was being compensated more for this mission than most of the people here were paid for a year’s worth of work. 

Keefe glanced around the club quietly while she mixed his drink.

It wasn’t until a glass was placed on the counter in front of him that Keefe glanced up at the girl. 

“Is he your brother?” He asked her, pointing at the silver-haired boy standing near the ring. 

He was wrapping and unwrapping his hand methodologically as he watched the fight taking place before him. His gaze was dripping with boredom. 

The girl followed his gaze curiously. “You want to fight him?” She asked with a raised eyebrow. Her Luxurian was accented, but he understood her perfectly enough to immediately raise his hands and shake his head. 

“No, no no…” he said quickly. “I meant--” 

She looked him up and down and laughed, long and loud and not-very-nicely. “You’ll lose, rich boy.” 

Keefe tried for a smile. “That’s why I don’t--” 

“I’ll get you on the list though, don’t worry!” She continued, winking at him and sprinting away to the man waiting with a clipboard that had to be the roster. 

This was not happening. 

_So_ not happening. 

Good God. 

“Dexie pie, we’ve made a grave mistake,” Keefe whisper-hissed. 

His ear filled with the sound of static until it morphed into a groan. _“You literally had one job! How did you mess that up?”_

Keefe scowled. “You were supposed to be monitoring the video feeds. Aren’t you supposed to know how I messed up?” 

_“Well, try monitoring an oversized child on a mission while babysitting triplets at the same time, and you’ll see why I was absent for a few moments,”_ Dex huffed. _“What did you do?”_

“Well,” Keefe said, looking around him to make sure that no one was watching him speak into inconspicuously to himself. “I managed to engage with not one, but two people, and now I’m signed up to fight our, uh...subject.” 

He could practically hear Dex’s facepalm. 

_“This is not good!”_ Dex’s voice had taken on a shrill quality that had Keefe wincing and wanting to tear the earpiece out. 

“I’ll handle it,” Keefe promised, though he had no idea how. 

\-- 

Keefe was quaking in his boots. 

And not in the funny way. 

The boy stood before him, twisting his rings. 

Keefe stared at the particularly sharp one on his index finger, one that would definitely draw blood if it found an unfortunate path directly to his face. 

The boy smirked and slurred in perfect Luxurian, “I’ll take them off.” 

Keefe was shooketh. 

But he didn’t really have time to think because the boy lunged at him and suddenly Keefe was on the ground with the air lost from his lungs and wow was his ribcage hurting like a bit--

The boy smiled from above him. “Come on, don’t let me win easily.” He leaned closer, enough that his hot breath fanned over Keefe’s face and made him want to flinch away. “We have to put on a show.” 

He’d definitely broken a rib. Probably. 

“That was a practice shot,” Keefe said, his voice strained as he attempted to sit up. “I let you land that one on me, but next time, you won’t be as lucky!” 

It definitely wasn’t luck, if the next ten minutes were anything to go by. 

Keefe’s body felt like one big bruise by the time the referee took pity on him and called their match quits. 

He took the walk of shame by himself to the bathroom to clean up. 

He grimaced when he looked into the mirror and saw himself. Hair all mussed, a bruise on his cheek that was already turning purple, blood all over his lips. 

His eyes shot to the door when it creaked and the sound of slow footsteps entered the small room. 

“You owe me a drink.” The boy said, his voice more delicate than Keefe could’ve ever imagined. His accent was nearly perfect, and Keefe briefly wondered if this boy was truly the Scum he wanted everyone to believe he was. 

“Do I now?” Keefe said, his voice distorted by the current and extremely unfortunate state of his bloodied lips. He watched the boy in the mirror, wondering if the statement, not question, was a threat. All he got was a cold stare and a slight tilt of the head in response. 

It did not make his heart flutter. 

At all. 

He tossed Keefe a small blue package. 

Keefe flinched at the cold, missing the small, secretive smile that had overtaken the boy’s face. 

He was already gone when Keefe realized that it was an ice pack with a sticky note slapped haphazardly upon it. 

As he pressed the ice pack and resisted a groan at the relief it provided on his aching body, he peered at the note. 

Keefe tapped his earpiece. 

_“What happened now?”_ Dex’s voice chirped through the receiver. He did not sound excited to hear whatever it was Keefe had done. 

“Forkle better get ready to up my paycheck this month,” was all Keefe said. 

Then he hung up and smiled down at the crooked handwriting. 


End file.
